Palestinians
from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip queue at a
checkpoint in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya as they attempt to reach
their jobs in Israel. Photo by Khaleel Reash/MaanImages.

By Sarah Irving

July 23, 2010 -- The Electronic Intifada -- Every June, the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) releases its Annual Survey of
Violations of Trade Union Rights. According to a press release that
accompanied the 2010 publication (which reports on events in 2009), "the
Middle East remains among the regions of the world where union rights
are least protected". The report describes repression meted out to
Palestinian workers and trade unionists by both the Israeli authorities
and the Palestinian factions. But the ITUC's omissions and brevity both
disguise the complexity of life for Palestinian workers, and reveal some
of the international union confederation's own biases.

The most violent repression of Palestinian trade union activities came,
as in previous years, from the Israeli military. A May Day march of
around 250 persons in Bethlehem was stopped by Israeli soldiers who
fired sound grenades and tear gas canisters directly into the crowd,
injuring demonstrators. Three workers and a journalist were arrested,
according to the ITUC. Another march, in East Jerusalem, which was
deliberately kept low-key by its organisers from the Palestinian General
Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) was also broken up. And in July last
year, Israeli soldiers surrounded and raided the Biddya home of
Palestinian Workers Union head and Fatah campaigner Yasser Taha,
detaining him for questioning as a "wanted activist."

Among other events outlined in the 2010 survey was the strike held by
16,000 workers with UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees and one
of the largest employers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip,
calling for the reinstatement of 312 West Bank colleagues fired for
violating the organisation's "non-partisan" policy. UNRWA workers also
went on strike to demand pay increases in line with Palestinian
Authority (PA) staff and UN employees elsewhere in the world. Public
sector workers in both the West Bank and Gaza had multiple disputes with
both the PA and Hamas authorities over late payment of wages, mainly
due to Israel's withholding of revenues owed.

In September 2009, rising tensions between the PA and transport,
education and health unions over late payment of overtime and transport
costs culminated in the health ministry sacking Osama al-Najjar, head of
the health professionals union, and a colleague. Al-Najjar had publicly
accused the ministry of "targeting union activities" and avoiding
dialogue. During a radio interview, PA health minister Fathi Abu Moghli
referred to the ensuing strike by health workers as "illegal". Union
leaders demanded an urgent meeting with appointed PA Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad.

In Gaza, meanwhile, the ITUC described conditions for trade unionists as
"extremely difficult", commenting that the exercise of freedom of
association or collective bargaining was simply not possible, partly
because trade union membership tended to be bound up in ongoing clashes
between Hamas and Fatah. In 2008, Al-Jazeera reported Palestinian
General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) claims that its offices in
Gaza had been seized by Hamas authorities and when staff refused to
negotiate over their future role, several were subjected to
assassination attempts and other harassment. Hamas spokesmen have made
similar counter-claims against the largely Fatah-linked PGFTU in the
West Bank.

Hamas

According to Khaled Hroub, author of Hamas: A Beginner's Guide,
the association of trade unions with specific political factions is
deep-rooted. "Initially, Hamas' interest in trade unions stemmed from a
Muslim Brotherhood culture that focuses on these institutions as hubs of
cultivating support and popularity", Hroub explained in an interview
with the Electronic Intifada. "Hamas' activism in trade unions is more
political than professional -- using unions as political platforms for
higher goals. This doesn't mean that Hamas-led unions have been entirely
political, but what I mean is that the main impetus was driven by
finding venues to express their political [and resistance] views."

The ITUC's has publically rejected Hamas, which it declared at its June
2010 congress in Canada as "extremist" and blamed for inciting the
winter 2008-09 assault on Gaza through its rocket attacks on southern
Israel. While he does not share that assessment, Hroub does agree with
the confederation's analysis that Hamas has dealt severely with trade
unions which are not affiliated to it.

"Once in power, Hamas became the regime that put these unions under
check and heat if they raise the ceiling of criticism against the Hamas status quo",
Hroub said. "Those unions that remained outside Hamas control in Gaza
are subjected to harsh measures that are almost identical to those
imposed on Hamas-controlled unions by the Palestinian Authority in the
1990s and until the 2006 elections."

The Islamic trade unions with which Hamas works are almost entirely
rejected by both the Ramallah-based Democracy & Workers Rights
Center (DWRC), an explicitly non-affiliated labour rights organisation
which has campaigned against perceived inaction and corruption amongst
the established trade unions, as well as by the PGFTU.

Salwa Alinat works with the Israeli labour rights non-governmental
organisation Kav LaOved (Workers' Hotline), supporting Palestinian
workers employed in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. She
describes a similar situation there to the one in Gaza outlined by
Khaled Hroub. She reports that "in the past, the trade unions have not
been interested in dealing with the workers. There are two or three
trade unions divided according to political lines, and they are not
really in contact with the workers, so there are problems of trust. To
join a trade union, until recently, was a political act, like joining a
party. It's not like in the West where a trade union is something that
looks after a worker's interests."

The political nature of trade unions also means that even if employers
do not discriminate against workers as trade union members per se,
they may discriminate against them on the basis of their political
affiliations. This is a widespread problem, according to several reports
by the DWRC.

Histadrut

As well as infringements of trade union rights by Palestinian employers
and by the Israeli military and Palestinian faction authorities within
the West Bank and Gaza, the ITUC's Israel report also raises the issue
of discrimination against Palestinian workers in Israel and in Israeli
settlements. Here, the shortcomings of ITUC's approach become apparent.
The confederation has been accused of bias towards the Histadrut,
literally the "General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel", an
ITUC member alongside the PGFTU. This accusation is likely to gain
ground with the June 2010 appointment of Histadrut head Ofer Eini as an
ITUC vice-president and executive member.

ITUC's report on conditions for Palestinian workers in Israel -- whether
citizens of Israel or West Bank labourers working with or without
permits in Israel -- does acknowledge that "Palestinian workers in
Israel, even with permits, are hounded by the authorities and are often
subject to abuse, illegal detentions and deportations while Israeli
Arabs [Palestinian citizens in Israel] are subject to extensive
employment-related discrimination".

The ITUC admits that "Palestinians who work in Israel enjoy freedom of
association [but] they may not elect or be elected to trade union
leadership bodies", apparently referring to West Bank Palestinians
working in Israel; the report seems to differentiate between these and
Palestinian citizens of Israel by using the term "Israeli Arabs". The
ITUC report also notes that in November 2009 the Histadrut amended its
constitution to allow migrant workers, brought to Israel in large
numbers, mainly from Southeast Asia to work in the domestic service and
agricultural sectors, to join the union with "equal rights". According
to the ITUC, this explicitly does include Palestinian workers from the
West Bank or Gaza working within Israel.

In 2008, the Histadrut finally started to repay union dues, which since
1970 it had been docking from the pay of every Palestinian employee of
an Israeli employer, claiming that half of this income would be handed
to the PGFTU. This was the outcome of an agreement reached in 1995, but
the 2008 move has remained controversial after it was used by Israeli
sympathisers to argue against boycott calls.

BDS movement opposed

The Progressive Labour Action Front, linked to the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, issued a statement noting that "the Histadrut
is engaging, as part of the world Zionist movement, in an international
campaign designed to undermine international labour support for the
Palestinian people and to oppose the Palestinian and international
campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. As part
of this campaign, the Histadrut issued a statement on `peace and
cooperation' posted on the [ITUC] website on 11 September 2009."

The ITUC also reported specific abuses by Israeli employers of
Palestinian workers in West Bank settlements. These included the sacking
and suspension of Jahleen Bedouin workers at the Maaleh Adumim
municipality after they went on strike demanding to be allowed to attend
Friday prayers, and the illegally low pay, lack of medical benefits and
threats of violence against mainly women workers in a textile factory
at Barkan, near Ariel settlement. The report notes, "The situation
of these workers is exacerbated by the fact that often Israeli
authorities abandon the Palestinian workers to their employers by not
inspecting their working conditions, especially in the West Bank
settlements."

Although it engages with accusations of discrimination by
settlement-based companies, the ITUC's report neglects to mention the steady
increase in discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel. The
sacking of several dozen Palestinian employees by Israel Railways in
March 2009, for instance, comes well within the report's remit, but is
ignored.

Israel Railways told Israeli newspaper Haaretz at the time of
the sackings that "it would employ only army veterans in the positions
these employees held." The sackings became a high-profile story in
Israel after Israel Railways was forced by Tel Aviv Labor Court to postpone the sackings,
and then changed its story to claim that mistakes by the employees had
caused the changes in recruitment policy. This is part of a growing
trend of excluding Arab workers because Palestinian citizens of Israel
do not serve in the Israeli army, which anecdotal evidence suggests
stretches from informal employment such as restaurant jobs to major
national corporations.

While Palestinian workers, whether inside Israel or in Israeli
settlements in the West bank, are not properly represented by the
Histadrut, Palestinian trade unions are also barred from offering them
practical help.

Wael Natheef, general secretary of the Jericho branch of the PGFTU and a
member of the union's executive committee, told the Electronic
Intifada: "As trade unionists we often cannot do anything. The
settlements are forbidden to us and we cannot go to the Israeli courts."

Unions are also hampered by small budgets because of their low
membership rates, which have been used as an argument against their
grassroots legitimacy. As a result, legal cases brought by Palestinian
settlement workers against Israeli factories, such as Royalife in Barkan
and Soda Club in Mishor Adumim, have often been dependent on support
from Israeli organisations such as Kav LaOved.

"We established this branch [of the PGFTU] in 1993 after the Oslo
agreement", says Natheef. "We worked as unionists before then, but
underground, because you had to get permission from the Israeli
authorities at Beit El to hold a meeting or organise something. After
Oslo we rented this building and continued, but it is still very
difficult."

[Sarah Irving is a
freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement
in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting
fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She
now writes full time on a range of issues, including Palestine. Her
first book, Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was published in January 2010.]